McGraw Hill Glencoe Algebra 1, 2012
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McGraw Hill Glencoe Algebra 1, 2012 View details
2. Order of Operations
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Exercise 43 Page 13

Pay close attention to the order of operations.

Practice makes perfect
According to the order of operations, expressions inside parentheses are evaluated first, while addition and subtraction are evaluated last. For the given expression, this means evaluating the expression inside the brackets completely before evaluating exponent and adding.
Notice also that even within this parenthetical expression, we must obey the order of operations.
For this, we must remember to evaluate the exponent first and then find the difference.
Operation Before Simplification After Simplification
Calculate power
Subtract term
Calculate power
Add terms
The expression equals

Alternative Solution

Using a Calculator

We can also evaluate this expression using a calculator. To do so, type it as shown below.